


Mourning

by dozmuffinxc



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, tw: miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 10:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5494595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dozmuffinxc/pseuds/dozmuffinxc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An anon requested "maryxmatthew prompt: after trying for so long mary is finally pregnant but she has a tragic miscarriage, she's very depressed and matthew supports her." Thus, I oblige.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mourning

Anna was waiting for him when he slipped in through the service door just after midnight.

“Thank God you’re here,” she whispered, reaching automatically to take his coat and overnight bag. “I didn’t know what to do, and I don’t like to worry Her Ladyship, especially not when Lady Mary’s been insisting that everything’s fine.”

“You did absolutely right to phone me,” Matthew replied, his smile forced but genuine as he attempted to catch his breath. He had asked the car to drop him off at the end of the drive so that his arrival wouldn’t wake the house and cause alarm, and he had jogged most of the half mile much to the driver’s bemusement.

“It’s just… I’ve never seen her like this,” Anna said, her voice breaking as the tears that had been building over the last 24 hours threatened to come pouring out.

Matthew paused on the stairs to put his hand on the maid’s arm in what he hoped was a comforting gesture.

“Everything’s going to fine,” he said with more confidence than he felt in the moment, “and it’ll be you we have to thank for it. Now, if you would do me the greatest favor and go back up to bed, I promise I will come for you if there’s need. But there’s certainly no reason for you to lose any more sleep.”

“I can’t imagine I’ll do much sleeping,” Anna replied ruefully, “but it might help avoid some questions if I’m found in my room come morning.”

As Matthew made to push past the green baize door into the house proper, Anna pressed her candle into his hand and looked him full in the face, all reservations gone out of concern for her mistress and her friend.

“Help her, Mr. Matthew. Please.”

“In any way that I can,” he replied, taking the candle and pushing through the door.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Matthew thought he might startle her by coming in the middle of the night, but he needn’t have worried: Mary didn’t even flinch when he set the candle down on the bedside table, and for a moment he thought her asleep until he saw by the light of the flame that her eyes were open.

“Mary,” he whispered, stroking the side of her face and finding, to his dismay, that her cheeks were wet with tears.

She blinked once and seemed only then to realize that she was no longer alone in the room.

“Matthew?”

“I’m here, my darling. How are you feeling?”

“I suppose Edith called you,” Mary said, avoiding the question. “She never could pass up an opportunity to stick her nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“It wasn’t Edith,” Matthew replied, easing himself down onto the comforter by her side. “It was Anna, actually.”

“Anna?” Mary looked genuinely surprised.

“Yes. But please don’t be mad. She was so upset on the phone – you know, I don’t think she had ever used one before, and I could hardly make out what it was she was saying at first.”

“She shouldn’t have bothered you,” Mary quipped, pulling herself into a sitting position and propping herself up with the pillows. “It’s none of her business, anyway.”

“Maybe not, but it is mine. Mary—”

“There’s nothing to be said, Matthew,” Mary interjected, her knuckles white where they gripped the edge of the bedding. “This sort of thing happens to women every day. I wasn’t meant to be a mother, that’s all. You’ve – you’ve married a cursed woman, Matthew, and…”

Whatever other aspersions she was about to lay upon herself were cut short by a violent sob that she attempted to stifle but which came out nevertheless. Burying her face in her hands, her entire body shook with her weeping until the bed itself seemed to vibrate with her grief. Matthew pulled his wife towards him until her face was pressed against his chest and his own was buried in her unkempt hair. They remained that way for several minutes, both too overcome with their emotions to say anything. With one hand Matthew stroked her head, and with the other he rubbed little circles into her back. Her nails dug into his back where she grasped at his shirt, but he didn’t mind.

“My darling,” he said at last, drawing back just far enough to see her face. “I’m so sorry that I went away. I shouldn’t have gone up to London, not so soon after… but you must know that you will never have to be alone again, not until you’re ready.”

“Oh, Matthew,” Mary whispered, her voice raw from crying. “How can you bear to be in the same room as the woman who has taken away your chance for an heir? When I think how happy you were, how happy we both were, to have a baby on the way and then for those hopes to be dashed – my God, Matthew, is this some divine retribution? Have I brought the sins of my youth down on your head, as well?”

Alarmed by the rising panic in his wife’s voice, Matthew pressed his palms to the side of Mary’s face and forced her, gently, to meet his gaze.

“Listen to me,” he said softly, pressing his forehead to hers. “This was not your fault. Mother will tell you: from a medical perspective, you did everything right. But these things happen, and as horrible as it is, this too shall pass.”

“It isn’t fair,” Mary moaned, fresh tears wetting both her cheeks and his.

“No, it isn’t. But Mary – you know that this doesn’t change anything, not really? I would love you even if we never had a child…”

“Don’t say that!”

“But it’s true! I love you, Mary Crawley, and until the last breath leaves my body, I will never cease telling you.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

The first rays of morning were peeking from around the edges of the curtain before either Mary or Matthew fell asleep, but sleep they did, each wrapped up in the other as though there was nothing or no one else in the entire world. That was how Anna found them when she came in to dress her mistress a few hours later, and as she backed silently from the room, she offered up a prayer of thanks to the heavens before locking the door quietly behind her.


End file.
